Daniela Danna is a sociologist, researcher and a lecturer at the Department of Social and Political
Science, University of Milan. She teaches social policy to undergraduates for the B.A. in Social
Science and Globalization. She is the author of various books and articles mainly on gender issues
(violence against women, prostitution policy, GLBT issues, population and procreation). Her articles
and book chapters have appeared in different languages, while her books have been published in Italian
only. She a founding editor of XXD – Rivista di varia donnità, an Italian feminist web magazine.
Postal address c/o Scienze Politiche, via Conservatorio 7, 20158 Milan, Italy
email daniela.danna@unimi.it
The debate about the falling birth rate in Italy.
Abstract: This article presents a critical analysis of the debate on the fall in the fertility rate of Italian
women from 1992 to 2012. Sources are 49 books by social scientists and popularizers published in
Italian. The “demographers” (that is, the authors of the books examined) show a nationalist ideology
lacking a global view, believe that social problems derive from the number (in this case low) of people
rather than from the social mode of production and its logic, and point to the low birth rate of Italian
women as one of the biggest contemporary problems.
The issues examined are what is considered as problems for Italy, which connotation is given to the
diminution in the birth rates, what are the remedies proposed in terms of public policies about fertility,
what role women and men have in reproduction, and how the issue of population is considered at the
supranational level.
Keywords: critique of demography, Italy, low fertility, debate
The debate about the falling birth rate in Italy
In 1992 Italy had a total fertility rate of 1,2 children per woman, at that time the lowest in the world: it
sparked a worried debate and a quest for solutions, a debate that is still very much alive today. The fact
that the fertility rate has grown since 1992 was greeted with mixed feelings, since it is migrants'
contribution that is increasing. 'A diminution of population is dangerous' was the framing utilized by
the most powerful voices in this debate, a framing coherent both with racist and nationalistic stances
and with the imperative of capitalist growth. Alternatively, the data could be read as a relief for the
current and growing ecological problems, and as a legitimate choice of women to have less children in
a situation where they are less socially obliged to do so. But it is true that, on the microsocial level, the
low birth rate could also be a consequence of the economic costs of children: the discrepancy between
the desired number of children, usually two, and the lack of a second child in many families is
interpreted by experts as a frustration of the desires of the population.
The article presents a critical analysis of the scientific and populatizing debate in the last two decades,
keeping as guidelines the two different possibilities of interpreting the falling birth rate described
above: part of the problem or part of the solution.
We need a change of perspective in order to consider positively the falling birth rate, recognizing its
(necessary but not sufficient) value for ecological sustainability, and encouraging policies that reward
the choice of those who do not have children, or have less than what the experts now prescribe on the
basis of the arbitrary target of a 'steady population' maintaining the current, unprecedently high,
numbers.
Method
The research reviews the books in Italian about demography, population, birth and fertility preserved at
the British Library, at the library Sormani in Milan, plus a selection of texts found at the library of the
University of Milan 'Enrica Collotti Pischel' – all published in the last twenty years. This collection of
texts, based on their availability, are nevertheless sufficiently representative of the Italian publications
listed in the catalogue of the National Library of Florence, reporting all published books on these
subjects. It comprises 49 books: 36 essays on population and falling birth rate in Italy written by
demographers and/or economists and sociologists (including some which appeared in series aimed at
the the general public) and 13 essays on the theme of the contemporary world population (two on the
Mediterranean region and the Muslim countries in particular and one on Europe). Most are academic
essays, two are explicitly popularizing books.
Text analysis was carried out without the use of quantitative methods, with a reading aimed at
detecting: 1) the most common themes, both at the national and at the international level; 2) the –
explicit or implicit – judgement the authors give to it: 3) the interpretative frames most frequently
occurring; 4) the connotation given to the reduction in the birth rate, and finally 5) what role is given to
women by the different authors and writers.
I speak in general of the 'demographers' as the collective of authors of the texts reviewed, though not all
of them are primarily demography practicioners. Among them, however, there are the most prominent
Italian demographers, who publish in major academic publishers (Il Mulino, Franco Angeli, Laterza,
and also the more popularizing Mondadori). This generalization is justified since they represent a
united front in blaming the Italian falling birth rate while deploring the higher fertility of in poor
countries.
What is the problem?
In 1995, the total fertility rate in Italy reached a historic low of 1.19 children per woman, followed by
an increase in subsequent years only in the north and center of the country, thanks to an increase in the
birth rate among 30-40s years old and among immigrant women (Salvini and De Rose 2011). The
current data about population show that everywhere the number of children per woman is falling, but
the Earth's human population continues to grow because of the impact of the large number of people in
reproductive age (United Nations population Division 2012). The Italian population continues to grow,
too, despite the reduction in the number of children per woman: its cohorts in reproductive age are
numerous, too, and immigrants play a major role in increasing fertility. Italy is therefore not declining
in numbers and on January 1, 2012 exceeded 59.394 million residents, an all-time record. The decrease
in the number of children per woman in fact began already with the generation of women born in 1920.
In response to a United Nations investigation on national policies on population, the Italian
Government ('finally', according to the demographers) declared the level and trend of fertility
'unsatisfactory' (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2004). The decision was pushed by a literature
generally emphasising an allegedly exceptional Italian condition, that in fact is common with the other
Southern European countries (Osservatorio nazionale sulle famiglie 2002). 'Unprecedented in history'
low levels of reproduction were reached with 'extraordinary speed', and meant future catastrophic
consequences:
The phenomenon of a fertility declining so fast, so intense and so widespread, is quite new in the
known history of mankind (Golini and Mussino, in Proceedings of SIS 1987, as cited by Golini,
Mussino and Savioli 2000, 15).
For the past quarter of a century, the Italian birth rate has been low, too low. If the system of
transfers between generations is in tension, if the social security system falls apart in several
parts, if burdens heavier than those incurred by parents and grandparents are dumped on the
shoulders of future generations, well, this is also - if not especially - due to the low reproductive
decades (Foreword by Livi Bacci, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2004, 6).
The progressive fall in fertility levels that affected Europe's population - a phenomenon that in
the last thirty years has had its most extreme manifestation in the Italian reality (International
Centre for Family Studies, 2005, 85).
These 'levels that have no historical precedent' (Volonte 1997) in the last quoted text (which is openly
Catholic) are attributed to the influence of contraception and abortion – though it is well known that in
the past the babies who could not be raised were abandoned, with the same result in terms of decrease
in the potential human reproduction, only with higher birth and death rates (Harris and Ross 1987).
The general tone is of complaint about a transition from order to disorder, due for example to the
changing distribution of the 'age pyramid'. A change from 'leafy tree' to 'trunk without branches' is the
(not so neutral) view proposed by the same Catholic text (International Centre for Family Studies 1995,
39). Even the concept of 'sustainability' is rhetorically used in the sense of avoiding the fall: chapter 3
of the report of the CEI (Episcopal Italian Conference) is entitled 'For a sustainable population'
(Comitato per il progetto culturale 2011, 133). The target of a stable population, although being a step
back from the biblical imperative of growth, does not really tell much about sustainability in terms of
resources' use.
Another way of expressing the idea of a necessity of the stability of population at the high current level,
is the 'exchange between generations.'
The low reproductive level, which has been going on for thirty years, and increase in the
population in the very old [senile] age, demographically unproductive, have led to an insufficient
turnover in generations (Gruppo di coordinamento per la demografia 2007, 11).
There are two main reasons why aiming at generational replacement as a demographic target is wrong.
Firstly, in a capitalist economy there are no 'fixed places' that the younger generation can and must
occupy after the old cease their economic activity: unemployment is not directly related to the number
of people although (ceteris paribus) a minor cohort of young people, per se could reduce the problem
of unemployment. Secondly, environmental sustainability is not only a question of population numbers,
but relates to the use of resources. It seems odd to use the term 'sustainable' about an abstract number of
human beings (which is anyway wished to be as high as possible) without considering their actual
interaction with the environment. An empty Italian cradle makes the world more sustainable than an
empty cradle in a poorer country.
The only real problem of sustainability that demographers are in fact addressing is the maintenance of
the expansion of capitalism:
In the short to medium term, the effects of a slowing population growth may be negative in two
senses: because it decreases aggregate demand and because there may be structural changes in
the demand for consumer goods, related to changes in the age structure (De Santis 1997, 89).
The aging of the population is also looked upon with suspicion, and often declared a problem in itself:
'This disproportion between the generations is a major cause of imbalances that are occurring in the
context of Italian demographic, most notably the aging of the population' (Osservatorio nazionale sulle
famiglie 2002, 14).
Only one text clearly states that 'declining births' are not a problem – but only because the cradles are
filling up again: 'We do not believe there is, today, a demographic problem. On the contrary, what is
happening today and what the trends suggest is that a veritable demographic revolution for the
immediate future has come and grows today in the cradle. That's right, a revolution, not a decline'
(Billari and Dalla Zuanna 2008, 2). The reason for the recovery of the birth rate is the contribution of
foreign-born women: 'The demographic problem in Italy “does not exist”. Unless, of course, one thinks
in abstract and ignores the 'new Italians,' taking into account only the imaginary and ridiculous “ethnic
purity” of an equally hypothetical “Italian race”' (foreword by Gian Antonio Stella, in Billari and Dalla
Zuanna 2008, x).
Only Jeffrey Sachs (Italian translation) expresses a more sensible position:
We have to be concerned about population growth and take action in a public and shared way to
solve the problem globally. Here is what I will argue below:
- Population growth is excessive;
- The scarcity of resources is a very real phenomenon, especially in terms of the impact of
population increase on ecosystems and biodiversity;
- Rapid population growth in the poorest countries restricts economic development, condemns
children to poverty and threatens the stability of global politics (Sachs 2010, 175 – my
translation).
This last, Malthusian, statement is very debatable, as it omitts the economic importance of having many
children for the poor, which (along with the oppression of women) leads them to have more kids than
the rich (Basu 1992, Bandarage 1997, Sharif 2007):
The ideology of the demographers.
There is a pensée unique, a dominant ideology that blends on one side the Catholic revanchism
promoting the rights of the family – openly opposed to those of the individual (especially of the
female) – and aiming at a recovery of the Christian birth rate, and on the other side what we may call
the demographic component of the ideology of economic growth, worried because the future decrease
in population will jam the mechanisms of accumulation of the capitalist economy.
The discipline of demography is distant from understanding in depth human social phenomena – as one
among the social disciplines created by the liberal theory that wants to keep them separated instead of
united in a meaningful comprehensive social science (Wallerstein 1996, 2004, Author). Demography as
a science, like the other disciplines that separatedly study society, was established academically around
the mid-nineteenth century (Livi Bacci, Blangiardo and Golini 1994). Today its basic assumptions
reflect an ideology functional to the perpetuation of the capitalist mode of production, with its aim of
incessantly accumulate capital. Demography in Italy is blind to the results of other disciplines (e.g.
history, anthropology: see Szreter 1993, Greenhalgh 1995, Kertzer and Fricke 1997), but also to the
progress of the international literature in its own field: the theory of demographic transition, proposed
by Frank Notenstein in the 40's (Hodgson 1983, 1988), is still the foundational paradigm to study the
Italian population,1 as apparent for example in The Population of the Planet by Antonio Golini (2003),
pointing at the Malthusian theory and the demographic transition theory as the two real foundational
paradigms of current Italian demography.
The demographic transition theory was based on a binary that, drawing from the functionalism of
Talcott Parsons, extolled contemporary modernization based on rationality as opposed to the 'traditional
societies', based on the repetition of non-rational patterns. Demographically traditional societies are
supposed to be in a 'regime of natural fertility,' not choosing the number of their children (eg Barbagli,
Castiglioni and Dalla Zuanna 2003).
The bastion of the theory of the demographic transition is in fact the idea that rationality is a
prerogative of modern liberal societies even in reproduction, whereas previously uncontrolled fertility
reigned, held in check only by death. Instead, there have always been social mechanisms for the
regulation of reproduction, different in different classes and social conditions of production, therefore
'natural fertility' is a meaningless concept. Infant mortality was high precisely because not all children
were welcomed and cared for. A huge demographic and historical literature invalidates this old theory
(e.g. Boserup 1965, Caldwell 1982, Handwerker 1986, Bryant 2007).
1
This is true even in the translated books examined, e.g. Vallin 1994.
Connotations.
The way in which these texts (apart from Sachs) speak of the reduction in the birth rate is unanimously
connoted in a negative way ('decline'), while every real or wished-for rise is described in joyful terms
('recovery' or even 'springtime' – Gruppo di coordinamento per la demografia 2007, 11). The negativity
is often very deep, expressing a kind of intellectual terrorism, as we can see by these following
examples. The first quotes are from a text for the general public written by the popular journalist Piero
Angela (who in his introduction thanked the major Italian demographers for their collaboration). It
talks also about energy problems, global population explosion and other contemporary issues.
Nevertheless the title of the book is peremptory: Why we need more children. Angela writes:
Italy is among the countries in the world where fewer children are born. And this is leading to
traumatic consequences (Angela and Pinna 2008, 11).
To balance the losses, today Italian women should have an average of 2.1 children per head
(Angela and Pinna 2008, 19).
Has a demographic earthquake like this ever been seen?
Never (Angela and Pinna 2008, 19).
In 2050, it is expected that only 355,000 Italians will be born (adding the children of immigrants
we come to the number of 450,000).
If it were pandas or mountain gorillas, the WWF he would have already taken action...
True (Angela and Pinna 2008, 231).
Not true. The gorillas are fewer than 120,000 in total, while the mountain gorillas do not reach the
number of eight hundred specimens. Also, according to the WWF, the pandas alive are about 1,600
(curious mistake for a journalist famous as a vulgarizer of science).
The vocabulary used by the demographers absolutely does not observe the rule of Weberian ''valuefree” scientific description:
Demographic stagnation (Del Panta et al., 2002).
[We are beyond] the alert threshold for fertility, a level of 1.5 children per woman, and at the
same time beyond the risk threshold: 1.3 children (Natale 1992, 39).
Inexorable decline of births (Baldi and Cagiano de Azevedo 1999, 45).
(…) a comparison between the situation in Sweden, mythical example of responsible procreation
behavior, and Campania, a recognised example of irresponsible procreation (Micheli 1995, 28).
Those who take care of these issues are in the alarming position of the doctor with the case of a
teenager who refuses food. Is it a loss of appetite bound to disappear naturally, or are we facing a
case of anorexia? (Golini 1994, 14).
In Lombardy, the birth of one child per woman represents a 'bleak vision' (IReR 1999, 11). A chapter of
a conference at the Academy of Lincei is entitled: 'The differences in the delays in motherhood in
European countries' (Cheti Nicoletti and Maria Letizia Tanturri in Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
2006, 101), with motherhood evidently seen as destiny. For Livi Bacci, low fertility 'is a burden on the
shoulders of future generations' (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2004, 462), surely in the way the
problem of the ever growing ecological footprint of Italy is not. Tanturri and Mencarini in the chapter
'A portrait of women without children' (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2004, 71-116) are alarmed by
the number of the childfree: 'The phenomenon of infertility, ultimately, is emerging dramatically in
more recent cohorts' (p. 75). The drama regards about one fifth of the women born in the 60s. The book
Generation effect, speaks of 'the range of variation between more or less sterile regions' (Micheli 1999,
21). An entire volume is dedicated to the 'demographic malaise' (Golini, Mussino and Savioli 2000):
In particular, it seems to us that one of the most important problems is being able to establish
whether there is a threshold of demographic discomfort or alteration of the structure that can
induce both serious biodemographic consequences (especially a ratio far above 1 between deaths
and births), and conditions of economic, social, cultural and psychological malaise, which can
then establish a self-sustaining vicious circle to a point of no return, and may even lead to – as I
said – the disappearance of the population (Golini, Mussino and Savioli 2000, 17).
Catholics use the heaviest language: 'Suicidogenic trends from the demographic point of view for the
entire population' (Comitato per il progetto culturale 2011). This recent book, signed by the Episcopal
Italian Conference, not only exemplifies but also identifies family problems with the falling birth rate.
Some prominent demographers (Blangiardo and Golini) collaborated to this volume, that of course
includes among its targets the law permitting abortion. In the preface Cardinal Camillo Ruini reflects
on 'the demographic consequences of abortion' (p. viii); a chapter is entitled: 'The incidence of the
'unborn' in the issue of population of our country' (p. 101), and it is stated that 'the total number of
absent citizens due the voluntary interruption of pregnancy exceeds that of those present because of
immigration' (p. 103). It is estimated that as many as one in five 'potential births' is voluntarily aborted,
and another problem is that women who abort suffer from serious 'post abortion syndrome', and should
be rescued from it.
The social imperative of having children is also part of the sociological concept of the 'life cycle',
present in many of the examined texts, in which the 'stage of reproduction' is an inevitable part of the
existence. Silvana Salvini ('The low Italian fertility: the stillness of the Antilles?', p. 13-43 in
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2004) identified the autonomy of the adult with having children:
'What are the causes for the Italian youth not to take the path to a state of independence, towards the
formation of new families?' (p. 14).
And children are talked about as investments:
The modern couple feels more and more the need to have more time available, and the need for
greater freedom, independence and satisfaction in terms of personal fulfillment. The birth of a
child is then considered by parents both an economic and a psychological burden, and not as an
investment. (Baldi and Cagiano de Azevedo 1999, 75).
Ethical issues: the public interest.
The texts examined do not limit themselves to connoting negatively the reduction in births, but often
argue in ethical terms for public interventions in favoring a reprise in births:
Aid to young couples should not be seen as a welfare handout but as a strategic investment for
the country. In fact, if we want to correct the distortions of our 'population pyramid', in the public
interest, we must consider the young couples as true producers of wealth, and so we have to
enable them to 'work' in the best way, creating and raising children (Angela and Pinna 2008, 52).
Cardinal Ruini writes:
Our report-proposal identifies two main factors that influence the course of births. The first is
public intervention, that is, a series of organic long-term measures aimed not at putting pressure
on couples to bring children they do not want into the world, but simply to eliminate the social
and economic difficulties that hinder the achievement of the number of children they want. To
justify a policy of this kind is easy enough: the children, or the younger generation, are an
essential resource for the social body, and therefore represent a public good, and not just a private
good for their parents.
The second set of factors lies at a deeper level, that of the mind, of the sets of representations and
feelings, in other words of the personal and family experiences and the social culture, powerfully
influencing demographic behaviour (Comitato per il progetto culturale 2011, x).
Both the importance given to values in procreative choices (philosophically, an idealistic approach),
and the analysis of the decay of pronatalism, i.e. the social prescription of procreation, are clearly
shared by Golini (1994, 51). The demographer's contribution to the solution f the proble is to 'bring
back the collective and social dimension to births (now only lived in an individual and couple
dimension)'. Not only births are impossible to live “individually”, but in contrast with his analysis there
is a widespread persistence of a social obligation to bring children into the world, especially as a
component of female identity.
According to Livi Bacci:
Two principles linked together justify public action. The first one is that the children born from
acts of individual choice as 'private good' are also a 'public good', whose presence is a benefit for
the community. The second principle is responsibility towards future generations, that would find
their development affected by the low birth rate of the previous generations, a responsibility
which leads to finding corrections to the current situation (this is a self-quotation from
'Abundance and scarcity. The populations of Italy and of Europe at the turn of the millennium', Il
Mulino, no. 6, 1997. pp. 993-1009, in Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2004, 450).
The boundary between 'public good' and 'public obligation' is thin, and attacks to the childfree are not
spared, as they do not fulfill their duty to the community: 'How can we not see that those who do not
have children do not ‘reproduce' the workers of tomorrow which should help with the transfers to
them? Those who do not have children are, therefore, free-riders' (Golini 1994, 16). Also De Santis
(1997, 144-6), an economist, notes that an advantage of not having children lies in not paying one's
share of public debt and pensions, therefore he criticises the childfree, who mind only their own
advantage: their choice lacks ethical considerations.
In reality, as calculated by the economist Nicholas Sartor ('The financial relationship between the State
and family,' in Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2004, 167-195): 'We are in a situation in which, on
average, the total cost of children is paid for two thirds by the family and one third by the community'
(Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2004, 192), especially by means of public services, primary
education and health. Therefore the childfree are already giving to the maintenance of the children of
others. Moreover, the quality of children as public goods should be better specified: is there a specific
amount of new generations required, and if so, how to quantify it – or the more, the better? The public
debt per capita could for example be continously lowered by an increasing stream of births. To my
opinion, the ethical issues remain open.
Remedies.
The remedies proposed by demographers to boost the birth rate are the payment of various allowances
for birth and child support, the lengthening of the maternity leave, the introduction of a splitting income
tax instead of the current system of individual taxation – for Catholics this is the first remedy, to which
they add psychological pressure and economic incentives for women who want to abort to change their
mind. The example is the 'family friendly' France, and not Sweden, which is labelled rather 'mother
friendly':
This has not exactly positive implications on the social fabric, in terms of reduced social cohesion
with a conspicuous lack of reciprocity in the relations between the sexes, and a general climate of
social anomie and loneliness (Comitato per il progetto culturale 2011, 162).
The splitting income tax, by their proponents' own admission, is 'a measure of horizontal income
redistribution (in terms of lower taxes) from families without children (or who have less of them) to
families with (more) children' (Comitato per il progetto culturale 2011, 167). Therefore it does not
affect unfavourably only the childfree.
For Giuseppe Micheli ('Family policies between constraints and cultural models', pp. 257-260 in
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2006) first of all it is necessary to encourage the use of paternity
leave, and in general to increase the contribution of men to care work – something recognised in most
of the texts. But his second proposal is bizarre:
Secondly a policy of very little electoral appeal but of great strategic utility should be relaunched:
the reintroduction of a universal time tax, a civil service for males and females. It will make it
possible to meet the needs of the increasingly need for care in a society more and more deficient
on this front (Accademia Nazionale dei 2006, 260).
But this is not all: Micheli imagines that forcing someone to take care of someone else will manage to
get him/her socialised towards social tolerance, solidarity between generations, and will develop his/her
affective codes and social care practices. Why should they not, instead, being tempted to take
advantage of the weak strangers coercively “cared for”?
Completely insane is the contribution of Gustavo De Santis, cited with approval by Massimo Livi
Bacci: 'to re-establish the bond reproduction-protection by other means' (Accademia Nazionale dei
Lincei 2006, 467). His vague and threatening proposal does take into account some of the historical
reasons for the reduction in the number of children: the fact that the support when one becomes no
longer capable of working is no longer provided by one's children but by the welfare state, and the fact
that, in the past, political power was obtained also through a large number of heirs, important even as
brute force – but now the state's monopoly of violence makes one’s offspring much less important in
this regard (Caldwell 1982). To remedy the declining birth rate even the end of social protection and a
return to precarious, wild and uncivilised living conditions is hoped for.
Demography and politics.
We can notice a change of tone from the early publications to the most recent ones. Antonio Golini in
1994 still nourished the hope to raise the birth rate until the threshold of generational replacement: 2.1
children per woman ('Demographic trends in Italy in a European framework, 17-78, in Golini 1994).
Other texts did not even rule out the possibility of a renewed growth:
The great cycle of development, which began 200 years ago, and brought the European
population to almost half a billion people, is finished. Many Europeans feel that it is a good thing,
because the high density achieved, the extensive urbanization, the intensity of human activities
harmful to the environment, require a period of adjustment and of arrest of the growth, and a
possible reversal of the trend should be welcomed, not seen as negative. The Malthusian model
that until the Industrial Revolution identified population limit in the availability of land, and in
the period of industrialization in the scarcity of energy and strategic raw materials, it is found
today in a limited and fragile environment. History teaches us that the previous limits were
skipped or bypassed, and that no demographic structure is stable or permanent (Del Panta et al.
1996, 270-1).
Over time, however, demographers have settled on an awareness of the hopelessness of raising much
the low birth rates. The hope to be able to reverse the course on the number of children per woman has
faded, replaced by the realization that a great deal of financial support for the expenses related to
children would be required just for a marginal change in the birth rate. The goal of replacing the
generations in the foreseeable future was recognised as utopian.
Demographers, although (from Malthus onward) ideologically support the ruling classes, however, are
decidedly opposed to neoliberal policies, being aware that to achieve the goal of reversing the declining
birth rate, social services and welfare provisions must be ensured. Only a few proposals entail the use
of cohertion: for example, limiting the choice to have an abortion through a more restrictive law or
through the 'persuasion' of Catholic fundamentalists. In fact their 'Centres in support of life', are already
entrusted with public functions in some Italian regions; and the year of compulsory civil service aimed
at teaching the value of caring for children and for the elderly, with its contradictions: teaching altruism
by putting the young in a relationship of power with the weak parts of the population.
Demographic projections of population aging have been used as an ideological weapon to cut pensions
and transform the Italian pay-you-go system to one of defined contributions. Support in the old age for
the generations now young should in the future be entrusted more and more to the unlikely yields of
capital markets, as the public propaganda for private insurance as a 'third pillar' of pensions shows
(Mazzetti 2003). Among other results, it will make all future retirees stakeholders in the great game of
finance capitalism.
Women as the subject of procreation
Distinguished for their attention to women's choices, Anna Laura Fadiga Zanatta and Maria Luisa
Mirabile wrote in 1993 that in order to achieve 'the replacement of generations' between 1/3 and 1/4 of
the women should have a third child, but they affirmed this to be an impossible course of events.
But above all there is a fundamental reason: the decline in fertility is mainly an expression of a
value system (of which the establishment of a new female identity is a crucial part), rather than a
situation of disadvantage or the result of other constraints for numerous families (Fadiga Zanatta
and Mirabile 1993, 41).
The authors' recognition of the value of women's choice, is a position which is actually quite common
in the demographic literature, except for the Catholic:
In general procreation is considered a matter of women. Although criticised by demographers
themselves, the investigations on the procreative intentions are usually performed with interviews only
with women, not couples. For example, we often find the expression 'reproductive choices of the
individual' (Barbagli, Castiglioni and Dalla Zuanna 2003, 238). Dalla Zuanna writes:
What is the causal relationship between education and the third and fourth order fertility of
women? At least four mechanisms can be assumed. The first is very simple. The modern methods
of contraception (the pill and the spiral above all) until very recently have been very popular
among the more educated couples, while the majority of the others mostly used coitus
interruptus, presumably inducing abortion in the case of an unwanted conception. Among the less
educated couples, contraceptive failures were much more widespread and in large part
responsible for the births of third and fourth order (Castiglioni et al., 2001, Dalla Zuanna 2002).
The second mechanism, instead, is similar to those seen in the labour market. The educated
woman has more 'human capital' (in the sense that her higher level of education allows her to
have better-paid and more interesting jobs). Time 'lost' to care for her children is a greater loss of
economic and social position. The third mechanism, however, is not economic. The educated
females should be more likely to change mentality and less willing to accept the traditional
female roles. If this is the case, they should be less inclined to accept the ‘fate’ of motherhood
and more attentive to the satisfaction of personal needs such as free time. The fourth mechanism
is a bit 'more sophisticated' [the quality of children as opposed to quantity] (Barbagli, Castiglioni
and Dalla Zuanna 2003, 259-260).
If women are recognised as the decision-maker in procreation (e.g. surveys show that men on average
would like more children than women want and have – ISTAT 2006, 106), is the work of women in
procreation also recognised by this literature? Usually it is. The female effort in raising children is aptly
described. Less so in the document of the bishops, who believe that an 'acceleration in family values' is
needed to make the Italian women want to have more children, though at the same time they recognise
the need for a 'reconciliation between fertility and work', the need for a greater male collaboration (that
distinguishes the countries of Northern Europe, where the birth rate is higher than in the South), and
'the absence of effective public policies.' Some Catholics, as the sociologist Pierpaolo Donati, have also
asked the EU to do its part (Donati and Ferrucci 1994, International Centre for Family Studies 2005).
Changes in the material conditions, however, would not be sufficient: unrealistic provisitons
hypothesised in the survey 'Too many or none' could move only marginally the birth rates: just more
than half of women with one child would make another if they could get three years of maternity leave
at full pay (Maria Castiglioni: 'Deciding not to have another child. values, constraints and possibilities,'
pp. 339 - 385, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2004).
However, the fact that polled young Italian women say they want two children while in fact many have
only one, is considered cause for public concern and public action. Obviously, they are never the same
women that are first interviewed on their reproductive intentions and then on their achievements: the
results for different cohorts are mixed. The simplest explanation occurring is that after the first child
women just change their mind, realizing that one child is enough – though it is possible that many
remain with an unfulfilled wish for a second child. Demographers are quick to attribute this gap
between children desired by 20 years old and children born to 50 years old to external obstacles
(supposedly removable by public policy):
The survey INF-2 shows the almost general desire to have children: as much as 98% of the 20-29
years old surveyed say they want children. On average the desired number is equal to 2.1, a value
much higher than the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in recent years (1.2 to 1.3). During the life
course, evidently the outlook changes and the gap between desired (ideal) fertility and the
number of one's children reveals a subjective perception of not being able to address the
economic difficulties in the management of a relatively large family. This is why the immediate
causes of low fertility can be summarised with two problems: one related to the (monetary and
nonmonetary) cost of children (that moreover should be considered a social good for the
community and paid for by it) and one linked to the difficulty for women to manage their roles as
workers and mothers in a society where the public does not support them, and only the familiar
network of assistance (when possible) steps in to help, in a family characterised a significant
disparity in the division of tasks between the two partners (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
2004, 14).
In the research 'Too many or none' the intentions and concrete reasons why one did not reach the
number of children declared to want were explored. Women were asked if they wanted another child
and, if not, why. The most frequent reason, shared by the 30% of interviewees, for not having the
second child was that the early years were hard.
The lack of available time was reported among the most important reasons for not having
children by 35% of the women without children, and among the most important reasons to delay
them by 22%. For 40% of women with children, among the reasons for not having had others,
there was the fact that, if they had one more child, both the newborn and the other childre could
not have been cared for properly (the percentage was 43% among women who always worked
and 28% among housewives) (Silvana Salvini, 'The low Italian fertility: the stillness of the
Antilles?', pp. 13-43, in Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2004, 37).
On the basis of these data Maria Letizia Tanturri and Letizia Mencarini offer 'A portrait of women
without children' (pp. 71-116) which, unlike the rest of the literature, is rather sympathetic with the
childfree:
Some of these responses, however, can be influenced by a reluctance to reveal their preferences
for a life without children, in order to avoid a negative social judgment. Or, with age, a greater
awareness of the costs of children could come about, knowing the concrete conditions in which
work and motherhood must be performed (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2004, 77).
In other parts of the examined literature, an insatiable female desire for offspring is taken for granted,
and the cost-analysis of an additional child by Fadiga Zanatta and Mirabile (1993, 30) makes them
declare that the expenses are so high as to lead women to their 'renouncement,' thus taking for granted
that another child is something that all would like to have.
Other authors replace human choice with a reification of social phenomena (a defect often emerging in
demography), such as in the following text:
Increasingly popular and effective contraception reduced the fertility of generations of Italian
women at the lowest levels in the world (Golini, Mussino and Savioli 2000, 7).
The authors miss the fact that birth control is not an automated technology but something that people
choose to use (or not) for their own purposes. Of course not all procreation is the result of rational
decisions, but the language of demographers often completely erases people's choices, replacing them
with abstractions, as in the following other case of 'the increased women's workload':
But the rise of women's work, as well as moving procreation forward in the life cycle (indirectly
affecting the number of children) can act directly on the intensity of the process, increasing the
proportion of women who do not want children or who, however, while wishing to live the
experience of motherhood, fulfil their desire with just one child (Silvana Salvini, 'The low Italian
fertility: the stillness of the Antilles? ', pp. 13-43, in Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2004, 16 ).
To contrast this pervasively pronatalist ideology, it is tempting to give an interpretation of the falling
birth rate extremised in the opposite direction: could not the lowering of the number of children per
woman be the expression of the growing awareness that being female is being a complete person, even
without the experience of maternity? Are not women increasingly following values different from the
acquiescence to the social imperatives of procreation? Are they not really refusing to give continuity to
the existing way of life because they are concerned about the precarious situation of the planet? This
opposite interpretation is a phantasy, but not so distant from the intellectual acrobatics of the
demographers.
International issues.
While the Italian literature on the demographic issue is strongly imbued with pronatalism and alarmed
by the fall in the birth rate of the country, the essays dedicated to international population issues much
more reasonably recognise the existence of a problem of human overpopulation and/or misuse of the
planet's resources – both in books by Italian writers and in translations from English and, to lesser
extent, from French.
The general impression is therefore of a kind of schizophrenia: on one hand demographers require poor
countries to reduce the growth of their population, while on the other they try frantically to find
solutions to the problem of the low birth rate in Italy – driving to a certainly foreseenable but currently
inexistent diminution of the Italian population, called 'depopulation of the peninsula', 'extinction of the
Italians', 'end of the Italian nation and culture'. Sometimes it is confessed that this will only happen in
200 years, but the alarm is already on.
But even in the international literature there are dubious foundation for the analyses, and some
distortions of history. These texts are permeated by the same Malthusianism that Marx and Engels
denounced as the ideological basis of class exploitation (Meek 1979, Von Werlhof 1984). Among all
the texts examined, none cites the criticism of Marx and Engels against Malthus: poverty is not caused
by overpopulation (Malthus wrote that the poor have ‘no place at Nature's feast’ if parents cannot
provide for their newborns, a ruthless sentence deleted from the second edition of An essays on the
principle of population), but the principal barrier to human and economic development is the bourgeois
social order itself, with its class division based on private property.
In the text of Aurora Angeli and Silvana Salvini (2007) we still find that social phenomena are caused
by reified demographics concepts such as mortality or fecundity, supposed to affect people. The authors
conceal all the dynamics of power and oppression, and of course do not spend even one word about the
environment, war risks, the effects of increasing pollution on health, except for a section on the issue of
drinking water, considered a problem only in poor countries, while the rich do not seem affected by
competition for resources.
Massimo Livi Bacci (1998b) writes: 'A land densely populated is the implicit proof of a stable social
structure, human relationships that are not temporary, well-exploited natural resources' (p. 9). In the
tradition of Malthus, Livi Bacci evokes the great famine devasting Ireland after 1845 completely
obliterating the role of the British landowners who continued to export grain from Ireland while the
people starved. Let us not forget to mention Joel Cohen (1998) on another old British issue:
'colonialism [..] allegedly stolen wealth to India instead of invest it in there' (p. 21). And again,
population growth in poor countries is attributed by Livi Bacci and many others to the decrease in
mortality after the introduction of Western medicine and better hygiene practices, 'forgetting' the horror
of colonialism – here the political significance of the theory of demographic transition is clear
(Aughor). Only at the end of his book Livi Bacci admits a little perception problem: 'There is a
widespread feeling that the current population growth is like a vehicle that travels fast on a dangerous
road' (p. 283).
Conclusion.
The rhetoric of growth does not spare the field of population. As economic growth is promoted by all
politicians as the remedy to the economic crisis in Western countries, so the dangers of population
decline find a recipe in the growth of the number of children per woman (though the more modest aim
is generational replacement). This position is absurd: it isolates the question of the number of
inhabitants of a country from all other economic and social variables that define its quality of life, and
does not consider the phenomenon of migration, that if counted, would show the absolute falsehood of
the notion that the Italian population is decreasing.
The replacement level is the goal set by demographers, and by them proposed to politicians – only a
few understand that Italian women have no intention of accepting the incentives offered, usually
insufficient to cover the cost of children as the baby bonus of 1,000 euros una tantum.
It is really ridiculous to worry about the prospects of disappearance of the 'Italian race' in one or two
hundred years (while Italy itself is 150 years old). Instead, we should graciously accept the prospect of
a reduction in the population of a country like ours, which consumes resources far beyond the carrying
capacity of its territory, projecting an ecological footprint equal to the quadruple of its territory. In the
present circumstances, why should we set ourselves the goal of maintaining a stable population? Not
only is it necessary to reduce per capita consumption, but also the decrease of the population (ceteris
paribus) contributes to the reduction of our unsustainable impact on the planet.
It is true that in the country there are people who want to have more children than they have had and
are held back by economic considerations. But is it really up to the State, to the res publica with its
collective resources to deal with it? Are we not going in the right direction already? The economic
constraint exists for all: why alleviate it for those whose choice would be to have children rather than
for those who do not want them? In the spirit of sustainability (of course not the 'demographic
sustainability', which is an absurd concept, but the true and only ecological sustainability) I find no
positive response.
Finally, it is sad that all the competence (for example in the impeccable use of statistics and
mathematics) and all the intelligence of the demographers is used to serve a cause – getting the Italian
women to have more children - so far away from the real problems that we collectively need to address.
This is also an unjustified waste.
But few social things happen by accident. Engels wrote that Malthus uttered the fiercest declaration of
war by the bourgeoisie to the proletariat. After two centuries, demography still looks like the biggest
declaration of war by the ruling classes to the dominated: to women and to the dispossessed of the
world.
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